Learning to Fall
by Static Lull
Summary: There was nothing left for her. It was her  mantra, her motivation. She steadied her breathing, stilled her hammering heart, enjoyed the breeze for the last time, and jumped. EsmeCarlisle. DISCONTINUED.


**A/N** Esme and Carlisle have always interested me. Information about their history together is so minimal in the book, so I decided to give them a story of their own even though the concept isn't completely original. A lot of Esme's background is actual information provided by Stephenie Meyers herself on Twilight Lexicon. If you're interested in a general direction of how this story is going to go, check there. Reviews are much appreciated.

Disclaimer: Stephenie owns everything, mostly.

Installment 1 – Take the Plunge

_Ashland 1921_

She paced the ledge and had been doing just that for some time. Her eyes searched the skyline for some sort of clue—a sign. The wind caressed her skin softly, more gentle, she was certain, than butterfly wings. It was so tempting to just melt into it, to dance and become as free as the wind. This was it, what she had been waiting for.

Esme backed up several paces and took a runner's start towards the edge of existence. She would get enough speed to fling herself out far enough so that she would not meet any resistance on the way down. It would ruin everything if she did not make it out quite far enough. Her body would smash unceremoniously into the lower ledges—an exceedingly painful trip to the bottom filled with broken bones and more time to feel them than necessary. Esme wanted something quick and painless, something so fast she wouldn't have realized her death until she was holding her baby again.

Her feet touched the edge; one more foot would do it. This was it. Her limbs locked. Esme teetered on the cliff's ledge for a moment, so close that loose earth spilled down below. She leaned dangerously forward, towards the painful end, the one she didn't want. Her arms wind-milled instinctively and she found herself on her bottom, solid earth beneath her.

In that position, Esme was forced to ask again how she had found herself up here on the brink of insanity and hysteria. Nothing motivated her. That was precisely it. It was the all-consuming feeling that in the whole vast world she had no purpose. Esme had no reason to exist. She was a daughter, but she had abandoned her home some time ago and her parents had undoubtedly disowned her. She was a wife too, but that had never held much weight for her, not when she was involved with someone like Charles Evenson. Everyone in Ashland believed him to be dead, another casualty of the Great War—that suited Esme just fine. She was a schoolteacher, but they were replaceable.

Nothing tethered her to this world.

Being a mother was the only thing that ever mattered to Esme. Daniel was her savior before he had even been born. He had allowed her to escape—to reclaim her life—but his own had been snuffed out in the process. Now there was just emptiness, a great void of purpose.

_There's nothing left. Nothing. There's nothing._ Her mind repeated it like a broken record, a record whose rhythm pulled her to her feet, singing her motivation and weaving an undertone of paradise. It was a hypnotizing melody that took up chorus with the wind, which tugged at her caramel hair, beckoning her forward to join it.

It was much too beautiful to deny.

Her knees bent and her feet—free from her discarded shoes—pushed against the restraining earth and launched her into the wispy neverland of sky. For a moment, the endless blue seemed to embrace her and Esme seemed suspended for a moment. However, its reception quickly ended and she plummeted downwards for an impossibly short amount of time for such a long distance. The sensation of weightlessness was gone before she could relish it in earnest.

It is said that in the instant before death your life flashes before your eyes. If it were true, it must not apply to falls. There was no flash. It was as if she had been falling through layers of years, from the beginning memories to the tragic end, which was met by a crushing collision, surprisingly quiet considering the momentum.

**A/N** I apologize for the shortness of this, but it is a prologue after all. The coming chapters will show the events leading up to her death, and then everything afterwards as well.


End file.
